Dead Man Down

[redfiona99]

So I used my Cineworld card to see this.

Mostly I feel conflicted, and I think my friend L summed up the problem - "it's an arthouse filk about baking & Tupperware masquerading as an action film". And I really liked the arthouse flick parts, particularly the Tupperware scenes, and the action parts are terrifically filmed, but the merging of the two parts doesn't really work.



Basically if Noomi Rapace and Colin Farrell are on the screen together it is a good bit. They're the broken kind of adorable.

By the by, how loaded was this on the acting front, I counted one Oscar winner and one, possibly two nominees (if Isabelle Hupert hasn't been nominated it's one of those odd things).

The scene with the postbox was fantastic.

It was a little heavy-handed, especially the opening scene, but I forgive it. Because normally revenge films that want to go with 'no, revenge bad' cheat and still let the hero get their revenge, and the interesting this about this is that this one doesn't let the hero kill his bad guy, and, in many ways, his two greatest victories are not killing people. So it gets props for not cheating completely.

The other interesting thing is how this is very much the America of broken dreams and it's an outsider's view of the US (see also, oddly enough, The Scripts "For The First Time"). It seemed very New York as she is lived in, not New York as a tourist brochure. I liked the atmosphere a great deal.

Comments

[angstbunny.livejournal.com]

That's a really accurate summary. I, too, felt conflicted. I liked the arthouse stuff. I liked the action stuff. But they did not combine to make one whole good movie. I can take it or leave it where the action parts are concerned. I LOVED the vengeance stuff, the awkward connection between Noomi and Colin. The scene of their first date? I thought that was such an AMAZING scene. I love how complicated their relationship is, so many conflicting feelings. It's not about easy answers, which is why the final act was so disappointing, because then it became Action Flick.

I just wish it was completely arthousey.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

I totally agree.

And the first date scene is even better after the scene after it because you realise that she's trying to be charming (so she can get her way) but that she likes him a lot more than she expected to and that she's not happy about that but that at the same time, she does think Victor is kinda sweet.

Also, I loved the scene where Victor hands back the tupperware and finds out who actually cooked the chicken. Because there's something so soft in the way he looks at Beatrice.

[angstbunny.livejournal.com]

I love the scene in the truck too omg. Noomi being just raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage. I was like :O because she seemed so unassuming before then. But then BAM, RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE. And a part of me can't help but wonder if part of the reason why people didn't take well to the movie is also because (US) audiences can't handle female rage like that very well.

OMG YES. Urgh, I loved their chemistry with each other so much. I wish I could split the movie into two? One is just them being all indie long shots and awkward conversations, and the other is them being vengeful badasses together or something.

LOLOLOL what'd you think of Wade? :D

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

I think splitting it that way might be the only way to do it. Or come up with a better way of getting Beatrice kidnapped by the bad guys because it was so sudden in a bad way.

Wade existed. I was trying place his accent. Apparently, it's allegedly Brooklyn.

[angstbunny.livejournal.com]

LOL WAT he was trying to do an accent?

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

I think trying might be the operative word. Half the time he sounds normal, and then the other half it was a bit "you don't normally sound like that".